In the ever-expanding affordable smartwatch segment, new players are constantly dropping products that can match any of the established brands in terms of specs and even undercut them in pricing. Playfit, with its line of Indian-manufactured smartwatches and fitness bands, is looking to carve out a niche for itself in this segment. We got our hands on Playfit’s most recent release, Flaunt, and used it for over a week. Here is our Playfit Flaunt review.
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Playfit Flaunt review: Design
Inside the box, you’ll find the Playfit Flaunt with the straps already attached to it, a 2-pin magnetic charging cable, and a user manual + warranty card. There is no power adapter inside the box. The smartwatch is available in Champagne & Black, and Black colour options. We used the latter for this review.
The biggest highlight of the smartwatch is its 1.78-inch Super AMOLED display. Surrounded by very slim bezels, the display is fun to use and looks fairly good compared to its rivals in this category. A peak brightness of 550 nits ensures that you have no problem viewing the display in direct sunlight. However, the touch response could have been a little better.
On the right side of the dial, you will find the home key and a dedicated key to enter Workout Mode. The top key isn’t as clicky as the bottom one, which feels a bit weird while using the smartwatch. The microphone has been housed on the right side of the bottom. At the bottom, you will find the health sensors along with the magnetic charging port.
The Playfit Flaunt has a traditional watch strap, which is actually a pretty good thing given how many smartwatches are drifting towards the ‘over-under’ strap style. The watch provides a comfortable, snug fit and you can wear it all day without feeling any unnatural skin irritation. With an IP67 rating, you don’t have to worry about any damage due to water splashes or dusty conditions. Sweaty workouts do not impede the performance of the Playfit Flaunt at all.
Playfit Flaunt review: Performance
The Playfit Flaunt smartwatch is powered by the Realtek chipset and comes with its own customised OS. Connecting the smartwatch to your phone takes no time at all. All you need to do is install the Playfit IoT app and give it the necessary permissions to connect to your smartwatch. Once connected, you can get a detailed breakdown of the data collected by your smartwatch on the app.
The OS and general usability are a bit of a mixbag. There are some aspects where the watch truly shines. The range of functions offered with the Playfit Flaunt is truly impressive and increases the value for money you are getting on this device. The OS is pretty accessible and the user interface is pretty fun to play around with. There are a bunch of themes and menu layouts on offer.
The calling feature is impeccable as well. You can either use the watch dialer to make a call or choose from the list of your favourite contacts on the watch itself. The quality of the microphone is decent and the speaker on the watch is perfect for calling in an indoor environment. You can even pick up WhatsApp calls using the smartwatch. New text notifications get relayed to the smartwatch as well, but replying to them will require your smartphone. You can also choose to receive calendar entries and emails, WhatsApp, and Facebook notifications on the Playfit Flaunt.
The Playfit app allows you to make your own custom Watch Face and the level of customisation offered here is pretty impressive. You can even use the smartwatch to control the music on your phone. Another thing we liked about the smartwatch is that you can set up a lock pin for an extra layer of security. Not many smartwatches offer this feature.
Moving on to the not-so-impressive bits, the Playfit Flaunt does not have a ‘tap to wake’ feature. This means you will have to rely on pressing the home button every time you want to use the watch. While there is an Alarm app on the watch, it does not sync with the alarms on your phone. So, you will need to manually set up individual alarms on the watch in order to use them.
During our use, we encountered a bug in the ‘Find Phone’ feature on the smartwatch. The idea behind this feature is to use the smartwatch to ring your phone in case you can’t find it. While the Playfit Flaunt does ring your smartphone, there is no option to turn off the ringtone when you do find your phone. Even disconnecting the smartwatch from the phone does not help. The only way out is by restarting your smartphone.
As a fitness tracker, the Playfit Flaunt delivers a good performance. The smartwatch is equipped to track 100+ workouts which also include different sports like Tennis, Cricket, Hockey, and more. The data gathered by Playfit Flaunt was close to accurate. While walking, we found that the smartwatch was clocking up to 10 more steps, which isn’t too bad. Health monitoring features like SpO2 count and Heart rate monitor were accurate as well. Our one small complaint here is that the smartwatch does not collect health data automatically at regular intervals. You will need to visit the appropriate widget and wait for the smartwatch to calculate the health function in order to get a reading. The sleep tracking could use better tuning as well, as the watch kept tracking more sleep hours even after waking up.
The Playfit app is decent enough to have an in-depth look at all the data collected by the watch. The data is presented in the form of basic charts which are pretty easy to follow. The app’s UI seems a bit dated and we hope Playfit will fix that with a future update. Other than that, the performance is pretty much on par with what you get at this price point.
The battery life on this smartwatch is very impressive. On a single charge, the Playfit Flaunt can easily last up to 5 days without the Always On Display turned on. The standby time on a single charge is 15 days. The magnetic clip charger can fully replenish the battery in under 2 hours.
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Conclusion
At Rs 3,999, the Playfit Flaunt is a decent buy. The wide range of functionality alone makes it worth the price. The bright AMOLED display is the show stopper here, and the overall design of the watch works in its favour. If Playfit manages to iron out certain bugs, you’re looking at a smartwatch that could give any other device in this segment a run for its money.
Pros
Super AMOLED display
Bluetooth Calling
Customisation options
Cons
Tracks extra hours of sleep even after waking up
Minor bugs
No ‘tap to wake’
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